This looks amazing, in both visuals and gameplay depth. It's not a full game yet (a Kickstarter campaign begins on Monday and the full game isn't due till Spring 2013 at the earliest) but the pedigree of the indie developers involved is solid (Metal Gear Solid to be exact). A trailer for the prototype will be revealed on Monday for all of us to see. Here's a couple screens: http://camouflaj.com/https://twitter.com/#!/ryanpayton

Shacknews Weekend Podcast: Ryan Payton talks at length about gameplay details, as well as his hopes and fears for the project (start at 37:30).

- story driven game. You begin the game recieving a phone call from a 22 year old girl trapped from the outside world, asking you for help

- character moves from cover to cover with limited ammo. Ammo conservation reminiscent of old school Resident Evil. Example, you enter a room with 5 guard, and with only 3 taser shots, you have to choose which guard to take down to progress

République’s Ambitions Are Way Greater Than Just Metal Gear Stealth
An American developer with serious Metal Gear cred. The production studio that made that MGS4's wild intro movies. Looking at the upcoming stealth game they're collaborating on you could get the idea that this is just another Metal Gear Solid type game. You'd be wrong.

The game follows a young girl named Hope who is being held captive in a mysterious totalitarian state. Using a contraband phone, she calls you and asks for help. Hope isn't a puppet, and sometimes she might even disagree with you—that is, if you tell her to do stupid things. You goal is to not only help her, but also protect her. This is République.

Via her contraband cell phone, you can hack into the state's surveillance network and help her escape. You can tap on in-game cameras to "warp" into them and see the room and spaces from different points-of-view. The game doesn't feature any killing, and Hope can use only the limited supplies she finds. "The game is all about voyeurism, paranoia, censorship and control," said developer Ryan Payton.

Payton first made a name for himself during the development of Metal Gear Solid 4, while California-based Logan was responsible for the inventive opening films. Both are joining forces for République. Payton was one of the team members pushing for streamlined MGS4 controls. For République, he wants to do the same thing for the iOS. "I refuse to play anything on iOS with a virtual joystick," said Payton. "So from day one, it was our goal to develop an action game with controls specifically designed for touch-based devices."

"The game is all about voyeurism, paranoia, censorship and control."
Stealth games and survival games typically have complex controls, but Payton and Logan have stripped the game down to its essence. The result is experience that is controlled through intuitive motions: touch, swipe, and pinch.

From the get go, former Kojima Productions dev Ryan Payton, who recently set up his own studio Camouflaj, challenged his team at Logan to come up with gameplay that did not revolve around killing. "In a very organic way, the gameplay shifted towards stealth," Payton recently told Kotaku. "This initially worried me because I didn't want people to think that the game was paying homage to Metal Gear."

Instead, the resulting concept for République seems to owe more to the original Resident Evil and the Parasite Eve games—hence why Payton is calling it "stealth survival".

Sure, Metal Gear is an influence—give years of your life to a franchise and influences will carry over—but Payton and Logan were interested in how they could also incorporate modern games like Portal and Dark Souls as well as novels like Brave New World, We, and 1984 to create a stealth experience like you've never played before.

République is currently in its proof of concept phase. It's currently for iOS, and a playable demo exists, but it's still early in the title's life. Savings, generosity, and sheer sweat have funded the title this far, and a Kickstarter campaign will launch to help finish it.

While Payton has several high profile games under his belt, this is the first title Logan has developed. The studio has made a name for itself with inventive commercials and cinematics, but was looking to spread its wings into game development. Since the studio and Payton go back to the Metal Gear 4 days, this seemed like an ideal fit. The concept for République was originally Payton's, but Logan saw something that appealed to its sensibilities. According to Logan co-founder Alexei Tylevich, "A dystopian sensibility is something that I normally tend to gravitate toward, and I feel that the concept behind this game is a perfect fit for Logan." Making a truly immersive world is something Tylevich has always wanted to do.

Payton and Logan are aiming to make an experience that pulls them in with game play and then digs its claws into them with its ideas and characters. "Without being preachy, the goal with République is to transport players into a world heavily inspired by the debate going on right now about SOPA, surveillance, digital rights, the Fourth Amendment...the stresses and white noise of living in a digital age," said Payton. "My desire is that the game touches players on an emotional and intellectual level."

Players won't simply take direct control of Hope, but instead will view the action through security cameras throughout the facility and help shepherd the young damsel through a number of sticky situations. She begins the game by reaching out to the player via a cell phone she's found, and it's up to the player to help her escape. It's also an incredibly ambitious undertaking, one that Payton expects to be in development for about a year.

Besides his work on Halo 4, Payton also worked on at Kojima Productions on Metal Gear Solid 4, and was one of the team members who pushed for the game's more streamlined control scheme. He's strongly opposed to virtual joysticks in iOS games, and as such, Republique focuses exclusively on touch-screen controls like swiping, pinching, and tapping. Furthermore, Logan--the entity responsible for MGS4's opening cinematics--is also involved in developing the project.

Republique's Kickstarter campaign is expected to kick off this coming Monday, and Payton came to the studio to discuss the game as a guest on this week's episode of the Weekend Confirmed podcast. We were all impressed by what we saw. If you're interested in a fantastic-looking stealth game that's both tactical and portable, Republique is a game you'll probably want to keep an eye on.

Looks incredible and intriguing. I'll be looking forward to seeing your first trailer. I'm more and more heartened to see (especially indies) devs taking the time and care to make something new and compelling rather than produce a simple game often recycled with new skins. Best of luck.

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